202864P.pdf   01/27/2022  Brian Baude  v.  Gerald Leyshock
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  20-2864
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Erickson, Author, with Kelly, and Grasz, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Civil rights. In this Section 1983 action arising out of the 
   September 17, 2017 protests of the acquittal of a St. Louis police officer 
   on murder charges, plaintiff alleged the defendant officers violated his 
   civil rights when they boxed or "kettled" him in with other protestors and 
   then pepper sprayed him, arrested him and restrained him with zip ties. 
   The district court denied the officers' motion for summary judgment based 
   on qualified immunity, and the officers appeal. Held: the district court 
   did not err in denying the motion as the plaintiff alleged sufficient 
   facts to indicate his seizure was unreasonable; with respect to 
   plaintiff's excessive force claims, based on the current record and 
   plaintiff's allegations, the court could not conclude as a matter of law 
   that the force used against him was objectively reasonable; plaintiff has 
   also pled claims of excessive force against the supervising police 
   officers sufficient at this stage of the case to defeat the officers' 
   claims of qualified immunity; finally, there are simply too many unknowns 
   and factual disputes to determine as a matter of law that the subordinate 
   police officers reasonably relied on their superiors' orders to arrest the 
   crowd at the downtown intersection.